


Never Like That

by Areiton



Series: Parallels [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt Stiles, M/M, Original Character(s), POV Outsider, POV Second Person, Pining, Stiles Leaves Beacon Hills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-17 00:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14176812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: You think that is everything Stiles has ever been with you. Small and guarded and real.





	Never Like That

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to [ALMOST EVERYTHING ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12216408) and you should 100% read that first.

 

Things change, after the trip to Beacon Hills. 

Some things are good--Stiles is happier, he smiles at you more, the shadows heavy in his eyes seem lighter. He talks on the phone more, but it’s never the tense conversations you always caught him in the middle of before he hung up quickly and gave you a fake smile. 

Some things--well. 

He isn’t unfaithful, you know he isn’t. But you feel like a third wheel in your own life, because now that you know, now that you’ve met Derek, you hear about him. 

All the stories he never told you, spill out in the months after you return home, sprinkled into mornings together making breakfast, trips to the theatre, coffee shops and bookstores. 

You learn more about Derek in those months than you know about Scott and Lydia combined. 

You text Isaac, ask about Derek from someone who isn’t Stiles, who isn’t too close, and promptly get shut down. 

It startles you because Isaac is friendly, almost clingy when he’s with you and Stiles, invading his space, curling into him, and smiling at you from the safety of Stiles’ arms. He isn’t the cool reserve of Lydia or the cautious warmth of Scott, or the startling wariness of the Sheriff. 

But when you say  _ Derek _ , he’s cold, aloof, almost rude in his refusal to respond, and it makes you wonder. 

Derek feels like a giant question mark in your life, in Stiles’ life, and you wonder if that isn’t what draws Stiles attention to him, even when he’s laying in your bed. 

You think you could hate him, except you saw him, saw the way he  _ looked _ at Stiles. And you  _ do _ hate him for that, but you understand him too. 

Your fingers shake, a little bloody and far too unsteady when you lift the phone. Distantly, you can hear the noise of the hospital, the clinical beeping and a nurse talking. 

“Stiles,” an unfamiliar voice whispers, and you wonder how happy you should be that he sounds so shocked. 

“No. Um. His boyfriend,” you say, hurriedly, before Derek can say something you  _ really _ don’t want to hear. 

There’s a long tense moment, and then, “What happened?” 

You’ve never heard fear like that in anyone’s voice. It sounds like you felt, when you opened the door to your apartment and found the place trashed and Stiles in the middle of it, bleeding and unconscious on the floor. 

“He--there was an attack. Someone broke into our house--you should come.” 

It’s not what you were going to say, or maybe it was--maybe that was always why you were calling him, even when you didn’t admit it to yourself. 

You blink at the man you’ve loved for almost five years and you tell the one who loves him still, “You should hurry.” 

You return to his bedside, his phone discarded. Derek knows and the Sheriff knows and the rest of them could wait. 

Time is a funny thing, in hospitals. You know that, from your time in the hospital in Germany, the injury that sent you home for the last time, and it takes on that elastic quality now, stretching and twisting, an unending night that lasts forever, listening to the quiet steady machines and his ragged breathing, marking time by the nurses visits. 

It feels eternal, and passes in a blink. 

You hear the voices first, loud and angry, and you pause. Stiles is laying in that bed, looking smaller than you have ever seen him, and right now, for just this moment longer, he’s yours. 

He’s  _ yours.  _

You kiss him, and he whines, shifting in his sleep. 

“Where the hell is my son?” the Sheriff shouts. 

“John,” a familiar voice chimes. “Calm down.” 

John. His father’s name is John. How the hell did you never know that? 

“He’s here,” you say, and both of them turn to you, and you see a desperation, a need in them that makes you ache. 

You know that kind of fear so you wave the nurses aside and let them file into the room. 

“Shit,” Derek breathes, and you watch as he sinks down next to Stiles.

“What happened?” the sheriff--John--demands and you shake your head. Look at him. 

“Home invasion--he was attacked when he came home.” 

Derek makes a noise that makes you anxious, but John is there, holding your gaze and attention. 

“The doctors said he’s going to be fine--”

“I’m always fine,” a raspy voice chimes from the bed and you look over then. 

Derek is holding his hand, and he’s watching Stiles--and Stiles. 

Stiles is watching him. 

It hurts to see. Because you know how this ends. 

You think you’ve known since Derek breathed his name in that bar. You realized it when you saw the way Stiles looked at him--because you have loved him, for years. And he has loved you, in his way. 

But never like that. He never looked at you the way he looked at Derek in the bar. 

The way he looks at Derek now. 

You glance away and catch the sheriff’s gaze, see the pity there, and it makes your stomach churn. 

“Better?” Derek murmurs. 

“So much better, Sourwolf,” Stiles slurs and he sends a smile at you--small and guarded but real. 

You think, as you go to him, as Derek murmurs to the Sheriff and calls Scott--you think that is everything Stiles has ever been with you. Small and guarded and real. 

You hold his hand and wonder when it will end, and if you will be brave enough to walk away before he leaves. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [Tumblr](http://areiton.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
